The Dark Secret (Wattys2016)

Chapter 1: Mystery.

Courtney's POV:
I woke up in my home at about 4:34 in the morning. Great, why does this always happen? I go to sleep at, like, midnight and I still wake up too early, even for school. I groaned and sat up, my room was ingulfed in darkness. I look around and see I forgot to turn my laptop off when I went to sleep. I walk over and lift the screen, I sit down and decide I would check my test to see if a made any typos, grammar errors, or punctuation mistakes.

I made sure my test was 100% perfected before I decided to do anything else. Once I got bored of my laptop, since there's not much to do on it at night, I got dressed and headed for the library. It was always open at all times, so that students could study late at night if they have to. I was walking down the sidewalk, there were a few noises here and there but basically all I could hear as my footsteps.

I opened the doors to the library once I got there and walked up the stairs to where the most bookcases were. I was browsing through the books until I spotted one that said "Switched." It seemed interesting so I pulled it out, but what I saw on the cover sent chills down my spine.

It was an old and beaten book, parts of the cover was torn off revealing the pages inside, but the main thing that caught my eye was a note that said "FOR COURTNEY" I stared down at it, did it mean me or someone else? I didn't know for sure so I opened it. It wasn't a book about a story, no, it was information. Talking about a so called curse, called The Switch.

"The switch is very powerful, it turns the cursed one into a violent, raging monster that can, and will, kill everything in sight. The cursed one loses control of the body as the monster unleashes itself, anyone they see they will kill in a matter of seconds, no matter who they are. It doubles their power and makes them incredibly strong, no one...NO ONE...can kill this monster. There's nothing they can do to stop them. All they can do and wait and accept their fate. This curse gives them the power of shadows, a very rare and advanced type of magic. The power of shadows allows them to control shadows, summon shadows, and turn into shadows. How one gets this curse is unknown, people say the curse chooses them itself."

Sounds cool, but what's with the note? Does someone have it? I put the book back and got some different books, I walked downstairs to check them out. Once I did I put them in the book bag I took with me and headed out. Once I got home I set the bag next to my bed, got out my extra homework from underneath and layed down and started to do the extra homework Dworgyn gave me.

I finished the homework and set it aside and looked through the books I got at the library, I was shocked to find something that wasn't there before. It was a small box with a note on it, and underneath was that book about the switch thing. I don't remember putting those things there, and there was no one around me to sneak them inside.
Cautiously, I took out the box and the book that was under it, I glanced at the book then at the box. I put the book down beside me and opened the box still in my hand. I looked inside and it was a small gem, a black one. I picked it up out of the box and when I did it glowed brightly, making me drop the box.

It glowed brighter and brighter until I couldn't even see it anymore. I felt a shooting pain in my back and mh neck, making me groan in agony. As it glowed brighter the pain got worse and worse, draining the energy out of me. I felt myself being drawn forward, and I fell to the floor.

I still gripped the stone in my hand tightly, and a weird feeling shot through my neck to my back, it felt as if there was something petruding out of them. The pain got so bad that I couldn't handle it and I passed out on the floor.